What sucks, who sucks and you suck

It's Complicated

2015-03-05

A curmudgeon’s guide to Hand. Cannot. Erase. by Steven Wilson

An interesting thing happened when I added Steven Wilson’s forthcoming
album Hand. Cannot. Erase. to my Amazon wishlist. Suddenly, my Amazon
recommendations filled up with the most appalling shite, presumably
on the basis that “other people who want Hand. Cannot. Erase. also have
absolutely no taste in music”. A solo album from a member of a decidedly
middle-ranking, way past best-before neo-prog act - srsly? What
bothered me more was the worry that all the other fans of Wilson’ oeuvre
were actually displaying consistent taste, whereas this was an outlier for
me.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. … this could be a fun game.

Sheep. Cannot. Rewind.

Fish. Never. Phone.

Telegrams. Always. Stop.

…Sorry, got distracted. HCE is based on the (true) story of someone who
gradually withdraws and isolates themselves from the real world until they
slowly decay alone and unmissed in their locked bedsit, doubtless a tale
to which those who eternally believe that Wilson is about to go
mainstream can relate. It has begun picking up plaudits from further
afield immediately on release, with most significantly The Guardian
calling it “smart, soulful and immersive”. This is manna to a
longstandingly niche artist like Wilson, whose management and record company
have since been throwing that quote around with gleeful abandon. But note
that it isn’t really The Guardian as such that is a fresh convert to the
Wilson muse, but rather their rock reviewer Dom Lawson - rendering the
verdict much less surprising. (When Alexis Petridis gives a Steven Wilson album
even four stars while Lawson raves about Taylor Swift’s LP, then my
curiosity will be piqued and I’ll believe that boundaries are being
crossed.) Until then, I pity the poor hipster who unthinkingly buys the
Graun’s five albums to try this week
on the hitherto safe assumption that their sensitive allergy to hoary old
prog rock would not possibly be triggered.

For HCE is ye olde prog from two minutes in, the ambient opener abruptly
falling away to reveal some brutally technical unison riffing in
traditional style. Mellotron and mini-Moog? Present and correct.
Yes there are moments of pop and electronica and
things-more-recent-than-1990 but don’t believe the hype that
this isn’t a full blown progressive rock album. It may not be as overtly,
retrospectively indulgent as Wilson’s previous two releases but it’s
definitely more Prog than Not.

Worse, it (again, still) sails perilously close to the kind of
grandstanding instrumental virtuosity that elevates technique above
intuition and gave prog such a bad name in the first place. Task a bunch
of the finest session
musicians with bringing your musical vision to life and, well, “what style
do you want it in?” So we get Guthrie Govan and Adam Holzman giving us
their space-rock, a couple of minutes of their jazz-fusion and then - ask
not why but rather why not? - a rejoinder of their best math-rock
shredding. (The likes of Dave Gilmour are probably quite limited players
in terms of musical ability but every note they play is clearly intuited.
Whereas a versatile session muso can play everything - and will if you
leave them to it.) This kind of eclectic but irrelevant showboating
ultimately grew tiring on The Raven That Refused To Sing and it isn’t
greatly welcome here on the follow-up that we were promised was going to
be different. Yes, it sounds amazing but why are they doing that in the
present context of the song, other than because they can? But then,
Wilson’s fondness for directionless mood explorations has been a weakness
ever since the last couple of Porcupine Tree albums. Even now, when any of
the first five tracks from Raven pop up during my phone’s
shuffle play, I feel a vague disappointment
that it isn’t the title track instead - a song that sticks to a plain,
direct narrative both lyrically and musically from start to finish, in
marked contrast to its frenetic bedfellows.

It is Wilson’s saving grace that such schizophrenic noodling is usually
bolted on to an at least slender framework of quality songwriting, the
marked absence of which by contrast is what dooms the efforts of his
contemporaries on the Amazon Recommendations page, none of which I would give
houseroom. Unfortunately, on the longer pieces these accretions often
overwhelm and eventually take the place of the underlying song. Take, for
example, HCE’s set-piece, the climactic “Ancestral”, which early on builds
into an immense maelstrom around Wilson’s aching refrain “Come back if you
want to”, one of the few moments when the album is as genuinely moving as
the underlying story. Yet it carelessly discards this
achievement some minutes later in a closing welter of relentless,
generic metal riffing, thus managing to encompass both the best and the
worst moments of the entire record. The tiresome familiarity of this
trope suggests
it may be Wilson’s default mode of musical expression, which might be
forgivable if he had any great gift for it but his riffs sound like they
were sketched out in advance on graph paper.

Blimey, more carping here than the local pond. Is there nothing to admire?
Well, the title track is a solid, upbeat example of a fine modern
rock song; it would never make my list of Wilson
favourites but it’s got a decent hook and the sentiment is touching.
“Perfect Life” is an odd choice of lead track by comparison - the
narration and effects are intriguing and the closing refrain provides some
welcome uplift even if the piece ultimately fails to amount to much - yet only
a grinch would object to its presence here. And whatever the weaknesses of
the varigated approach to extended pieces such as “Regret #9” (you just
know the #9 conveys no great meaning beyond the existence of eight other
less successful versions of the same track), “Home Invasion” and “Happy
Returns”, they’re consistently interesting and demand attention.

Here’s my problem with HCE: it’s a coherent, complete, closed
musical statement. Few of the individual tracks make much sense
or are greatly compelling outside of the context of the entire album.
Exactly as Steven
Wilson intended, if you’re going to listen to this, you’re in it for the
long haul from the first track right through until the last, otherwise
there’s little benefit in embarking upon the journey.
And unfortunately for me, that’s just not how I listen to music anymore. I
have limited opportunities to indulge, and regrettably they’re rarely
dedicated solely to that end nor are they ever quite as long as a
concept album (OK, sometimes there’s a lot of washing-up but even then
I’ve never taken 66 minutes over it). Nobody ever said
they were making music to suit me, thankfully - but even on previous Wilson
outings, I’ve always been able to pick out a few highlights to provide a
momentary frisson of joy as they pass through the transitory blur of
shuffle mode. With HCE, I struggle to think which cuts could ever stand
alone well enough to provide such visceral pleasure - “oh good, it’s that
one with the clever yet strangely forgettable solo-ing and multiple random
mood changes. Again.” If this is Wilson’s ‘pop’ album then where, in
short, are the hits? If Abba are really a big influence on him then how
come nothing here is as memorable or arresting as even one of
Abba’s lesser singles? Judged by such criteria, HCE fails and by some
way. In no sense is it a poor album; but contrary to the hyperventilated
acclaim elsewhere, it’s not a great (or Great) one either.

I always remember, on an Internet forum in response to the usual kvetching
about Steven Wilson’s lack of due recognition and acclaim, one of the
other posters who was not so dazzled by his genius as the rest of us
responding that he thought Wilson had achieved exactly the level of fame
that his music deserved. It was competent and not without its qualities,
but in the larger scheme was insufficiently remarkable ever to appeal much
beyond his existing audience. I think there’s a greater truth there than
many of us would care to admit and HCE, perhaps more so than previous
releases in being targeted so precisely at reaching this notional
breakthrough point to wider familiarity, points up exactly why he is
unlikely ever to make it. It fits the bill perfectly for Wilson diehards
but, as happy as it makes them, as his best shot yet it still falls short
of anything that would identifiably lend it mass appeal.